Save the Albatross - Speech by HRH The Prince of Wales
Royal Albatross Centre at Taiaroa Head, New Zealand,
Sunday 6th March 2005
Like many other one-time mariners I have a very special
affection for the albatross. I remember so well, while serving in the Royal
Navy, standing on the deck of a fast-moving ship in one of the Southern oceans,
watching an albatross maintaining perfect position alongside for hour after
hour, and apparently day after day. It is a sight I will never forget. And only
the other day there was further evidence of the mystery and majesty of these
birds when a satellite-tagging research project proved what we have long suspected
- that some quite literally circumnavigate the globe and the fastest does it
in just forty-six days.
I find it hard - no, impossible - to accept that these birds might one day be
lost for ever. Yet that does now seem to be a real possibility unless we, and
others around the world, can make a sufficient fuss to prevent it. In 1996,
three of the twenty-one species of albatross were officially listed as threatened.
Four years later, when I sat down to write an article expressing my concerns
about the decline of these magnificent birds, the total threatened species had
risen to sixteen. Another five years on, and nineteen of the twenty-one species
of albatross are now under global threat of extinction with some species now
numbering under one hundred individuals. The albatross family is now the biggest
single bird family with every one of its members under threat.
Their plight should remind us of the ultimate fragility of all the migratory
species - not least the swallows, swifts and house martins - that mark the great
cycle of the seasons and the mysterious, inner unseen urge that compels such
creatures to follow, with unerring accuracy, the timeless patterns of movement
around this globe. They are now dependent upon our whim - yes, our whim… I have
always felt that if their wanderings should cease through man's insensitive
hand and that magical moment of a swallow's first arrival (or an albatross's
return) disrupted forever, then it would be as if one's heart had been torn
out. If this were to happen - and we are rapidly approaching the very real possibility
with all twenty-one species of albatross - then we would sacrifice any claim
whatsoever to call ourselves civilized beings. We will have violated something
profoundly sacred in the inner workings of nature, and our descendants will
pay dearly for the consequences of this and other acts of short-term folly.
But to return to the noble birds nesting here at Taiaroa Head. I don't need
to tell this audience that the most potent force driving the members of the
albatross family to extinction is longline fishing, which is estimated to kill
one hundred thousand albatrosses every year. And even here in New Zealand, the
albatross capital of the world where fourteen of the twenty-one species breed,
it is estimated that around ten thousand albatrosses and petrels are killed
in your waters each year.
What makes this situation so particularly galling is that these deaths are completely
avoidable. The technology is simple, inexpensive and very effective. What is
required are bird scaring lines which keep birds away from hooks during line
setting; line weighting to sink hooks more quickly making them inaccessible
to birds; fishing at night when most seabirds are less active; and ensuring
that offal from fish processing is not discharged while lines are fed out. From
well regulated longline fisheries, careful monitoring has proved beyond any
doubt that using the right combination of these measures reduces the seabird
by-catch to virtually zero. This is not rocket science, just good basic fisheries
management and these measures are already mandatory for vessels fishing in Antarctic
waters under international agreement. But, as we have seen, these birds are
enormously wide-ranging, encountering a succession of fleets and fisheries as
they wander the oceans, so the real challenge is to make these solutions mandatory
on every longline vessel, not just some.
So the good news is that there are easy solutions. But it is frustrating, to
say the least, that it is taking so long for them to be implemented worldwide.
I know that under the UN Food and Agriculture Organization countries are encouraged,
voluntarily, to develop and put in place National Plans of Action for Seabirds
which set targets and timetables for the reduction in albatross and petrel deaths.
These have an important part to play, but this only deals with a country's own
waters. But the threat to the albatross is a truly international problem demanding
an international solution and that is why I have been doing what little I can
to encourage countries to ratify the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses
and Petrels. I do particularly congratulate New Zealand and Australia for the
leadership which they have given to the rest of the world. Ecuador, South Africa,
Spain and the United Kingdom have all ratified, and only the other day Peru
joined this list of countries determined to make a difference.
The bad news is that the problem of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing
appears to be worsening in many parts of the world, although there are encouraging
signs of a reduction in parts of the Southern Ocean. It may well be that a few
high profile chases and arrests of offending vessels may have contributed to
this welcome improvement. There are believed to be hundreds of these substantial
pirate vessels, typically operating under "flags of convenience", recognizing
no rules and - with few exceptions - evading every sort of sanction and penalty
available under international law. It is estimated that they are responsible
for about one third of the total albatross and petrel deaths each year. But
that is not the total extent of the environmental havoc they are wreaking. They
are denuding the oceans of many of our rarest fish, not least the Patagonian
Toothfish, sold under "consumer-friendly" aliases, such as Chilean Sea Bass
in the USA and Mero in Japan.
But there is a more general point here, which is that our stewardship of the
world's oceans has been truly appalling. We have polluted them, used them as
dumps for every sort of waste, and exploited most of their fish stocks beyond
the point at which they can maintain their numbers. Over 75 per cent of the
world's fish stocks are now classified as either fully exploited, over-fished
or in a fragile state of recovery. And yet, just as with the whole debate about
climate change some twenty years ago, not enough people seem to want to listen.
It is, quite literally, a case of "out of sight out of mind". But what on earth
is the point of "running into a brick wall" before we wake up to what we are
doing and then find it is too late to replenish the stocks of particularly vulnerable
species of fish?
This is a subject which is occupying many minds in the United Kingdom and the
European Union at the moment. An idea which is gaining ground there and in many
parts of the world is "no-take zones" or "marine parks". I know from the Royal
Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand that seasonal "no-take zones",
while birds are feeding, are now being considered here. They would not only
be crucial for the survival of the albatross and petrels, but they also have
the potential to allow fish stocks to regenerate and provide natural reservoirs
from which other areas of the ocean can be repopulated.
There is so much more that I could say on this subject but I would just leave
you with this one thought. To me, the albatross may be the ultimate test of
whether or not, as a species ourselves, we are serious about conservation: capable
of co-existing on this planet with other species. None of the short cuts and
quick fixes that might help some other species will help the albatross. Despite
the remarkable work done here at Taiaroa Head, no nature reserve will ever be
big enough to encompass more than a fraction of such a nomadic bird's total
requirements. No single nation state can take much effective unilateral action,
rather it calls for a major effort of international co-operation, and for the
regional fisheries bodies to demand seabird-friendly fishing of all the vessels
plying their waters. And there is not much time left. The clock is ticking fast
and even if mortality from longlining were, somehow, to be stopped overnight,
the rate of decline in the populations and the exceptionally slow rate at which
albatross species breed are such that recovery would take many decades.
As far as I am concerned, the plight of the albatross is a symbol of the emptiness
of too much of the rhetoric surrounding so-called 'sustainable development'.
Will it take the complete dodo-like disappearance of this noble, winged creature
to bring us to our senses? Or are we to remain blind and deaf to the appalling
tragedy unfolding, out of sight and out of mind, in the vast foam-flecked spaces
of the Southern Ocean? Whatever the case, it would be a shameful travesty of
our duty as stewards of this increasingly fragile globe if we couldn't find
a way of living our lives in such a manner that these magnificent birds can
continue to share the same planet with us.
Incidentally, I find it incredible that we live in a world which is so comprehensively
industrialized that we can allow the kind of intensive fishing methods that
slaughter countless thousands of dolphins and porpoises, let alone all sorts
of other species which have no means of escape, and that cause untold damage
to fragile ecosystems on the floor of the oceans. Do you not feel the sheer
unmentionable waste of it all to be so obscene? I shudder to think of the shattered
world we will leave our children and grandchildren unless we moderate our insatiable
appetite for the quick return and the quick fix.
I can only commend the remarkable work being done here by the Royal Forest and
Bird Protection Society for New Zealand, who I know work closely with the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in the UK and Birdlife International.
You are a true beacon of hope and I do congratulate you on all that you are
doing to secure the future of these iconic and magical birds.
The Prince has written a number of speeches and articles on the plight of
the albatross and other sea birds. Click
here to go to The Prince of Wales's official website.
